Director of PMO Excellence (Local to Chicago)

Company Description

Sonoma Consulting is one of the fastest growing national IT Consulting and Executive Search company in the United States, which was founded in 2011 by Mark McGee, the President and CEO. Sonoma Consulting has two business divisions - IT Consulting Services & Executive Search to serve its 150 national clients which range from entrepreneurial start-ups to Global Fortune 500.

Job Description

SUMMARY:
The PMO Center of Excellence (COE) Director will be responsible for a variety of different areas. Their goal is to develop a PMO COE operating model, then drive delivery execution using COE capabilities around methods and tools, training, benefits tracking, integration management, and resource management across the portfolio. They will be responsible for establishing leading practice program management methodology and integrated toolset to drive standardization, repeatable processes, and consistent behaviors across all program and project managers. This person will establish standardization and repeatable processes by developing a PM operating model to determine how to staff each type of project, depending on complexity, size, and duration. The COE Director will also be responsible for defining and deploying training for all program, project and portfolio managers to align on methodology and operating model.

This person will work closely with the Senior Director of PMO on demand management and staffing, making recommendations on PM assignments both in-house as well as through the vendor pool based on requests skill set needs. They will also assist in strengthening the partnerships with functions such as enterprise architecture, organizational change management, business relationship managers, continuous improvement and other regional PMOs.

Finally, this person serves as the strategic arm of functions seeking innovation and continuous improvement opportunities with a goal of increasing the value of services the function provides to its consumers and the function’s brand across the organization.

POSITION RESPONSIBILITIES:
Design, develop and manage the portfolio/program/project operating model and COE organization structure
Develop and drive portfolio/program/project management best practices and standards that will improve productivity, investment decision making and realize targeted business outcomes.
Responsible for the development and delivery of 3-year PMO roadmap
Responsible for the development and management of program related benefits and business value across the enterprise
Responsible for developing and executing a high degree of financial discipline across the COE and portfolio of projects.
Conduct and prepare for steering level meetings and readouts
Defines and ensures use of standard methodologies, processes, PPM tools and reporting metrics (KPIs).
Tracks portfolio related status, issues, risks and dependencies.
Pursues issue and risk resolution and communicates status and escalations to business stakeholders and operational management.
Provides leadership the recommended resolution and/or escalation of issues that may impact project scope, schedule or budget.
Develops a set of executive and team related dashboards to communicate up and down the organization the status of the portfolio.
Monitors the integration of rationalization, enterprise and business architecture efforts across the PMO portfolio
Manages the design authority and change control functions of the PMO portfolio
Manages the intake and demand management function and maintains the capital and expense budgets across the program portfolio
Tracks, monitors and manages resource and capacity management conflicts and demands.
Oversees the coordination and delivery of program plans, WBS structures and deliverables and the management of milestones.
Responsible for the adoption of portfolio/program/project management methodology and provide suitable interpretation to all stakeholders within the organization.


OTHER SKILLS and ABILITIES:
Strong influence management skills; ability to work cooperatively at all levels in a matrix environment to build and maintain the positive relationships required to accomplish organizational goals
Excellent communication skills and interpersonal/team effectiveness – ability to succinctly and accurately communicate to various levels of management and employees
Exceptional analytical, strategic, planning, organization, and time management skills to effectively execute project plans and budgets
Clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of cross- functional project teams and functional management
Exceptional portfolio, program, and project management skills
Business acumen; ability to think from an overall “best for the business” perspective
Demonstrates initiative; results oriented
Excellent decision making skills – ability to negotiate and balance decisions and manage competing priorities across multiple functional areas


DAY IN THE LIFE INTERACTION
The person in this role will interact with every component of the PMO to ensure delivery standardization and optimization drives delivery excellence. The key interaction will be with the Senior Director of PMO on demand management, overall PMO portfolio health, and strategic direction.
The COE Director will work with the Training Lead to ensure that training curriculums support the PMO strategy
This person will work with the Business and Integration Lead to understand current and future dependency risks, and propose mitigation plans to the Senior Director of PMO.
This person will work with the Resource Manager to monitor demand management, identify vendor pool resources who can resolve a current issues or mitigate a future risk
They will work with the Analytics lead to ensure that we are using data to “make the news” not “report the news.”
As the COE Director, this person will team with program and portfolio managers to help drive delivery, and to identify risks and issues that need to be escalated.
Participate in the stage gate process for all programs and projects in the portfolio
Report to the Senior Director of PMO on a weekly basis and provide status and forward-looking recommendation on risks, issues, actions, decisions, and dependencies.

Qualifications

Qualification:
EDUCATION REQUIRED:
Bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems, Business, or related field

YEARS OF EXPERIENCE:
15 years of experience in program, project, and portfolio management
10 years of experience with the functions within program and portfolio management
10 years with delivery methodologies and tools

SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE REQUIRED:
Project, Program, and Portfolio leadership experience
Program manager experience or people manager experience (with direct reports)
Portfolio, capacity, and financial management experience
Experience managing global initiatives
Experience driving change management initiatives across an organization

DESIRED/PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
Self-motivated individual with passion to succeed
Demonstrated leadership for process harmonization across an organization
Experience implementing initiatives through effective influence management skills at multiple levels in the organization
Excellent verbal and written communication and presentation skills
Experience in creating and delivering presentations to leadership
Excellent facilitation and issue resolution skills
Previous experience operating in a matrix organization
Ability to work independently or collaboratively to determine and develop approaches to solutions with very little to no supervision or direction
Experience providing work direction and leadership to people and teams in a management role
Experience with Planview, MS Project, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint and MS Word
Master’s degree in Management Information Systems, Business, or related field

PHYSICAL JOB REQUIREMENTS:
While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to be independently mobile
Required to interact with a computer and communicate with peers and co-workers

Additional Information

Titles: PMO Manager, PMO Program Manager, Program Manager, PMO Program Manager, Portfolio PMO Manager, Portfolio Program Manager

Skills : PPM, PMO, Portfolio, KPI